


Love and (Illegal-bot) Theft

by Pollys_hymnia



Series: Impossibly Improbable AU's [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Accidental artificial intelligence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And his robot alter-ego, Auto-robotic love, Bad software jokes, Egalmoth the Underappreciated Romance Novelist of Gondolin, Fanboy-robots, Fëanor the ambitious software programmer, M/M, Morgoth 'Get Thee Gone' Bauglir goes too far, Other, Overly sentimental software programs, References to 'Real Housewives', Robots in love with their real-life versions, Software Development AU, Software piracy, Turgon's architectural firm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-25 23:32:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18172904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollys_hymnia/pseuds/Pollys_hymnia
Summary: In another time and place, Fëanor the ambitious software programmer accidentally creates an artificial intelligence.  This new program names itself Egalbot.  The infamous hacker Morgoth Bauglir hacks into Fëanor's computer and steals the program, but Egalbot is 'rescued' by Turgon.  The bot then proceeds to fall love multiple times with his new found friends and many shenanigans ensue.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is all the result of a discussion on Discord about a bot that took on a life of his own. If I could explain better I would, but I can't. Enjoy?

There were laws about ‘that kind of thing,’ Fëanor knew.  However, anyone familiar with Fëanor would also know that laws would never stop him.  It’s not that he was your mad scientist type (except that he was), but his inventions and creations had always meant more to him than anything else.  He was a rather obsessive software programmer, and a skilled one at that.  His newest project started out as a simple program to help organize his own notes and ideas.  It had become much more than that, almost seeming to take on a life of its own.  Fëanor hadn’t _meant_ to violate the international sanctions on the creation of artificial intelligence, it just sort of happened.

His first clue had been how overly-solicitous the program had become.  Of course he had designed a user-friendly interface, but he could not remember programming anything along the lines of ‘Darling, I have organized your AutoCAD drafts with the utmost care, it is always a pleasure to be of use to you.’ Then there were the word documents that started appearing on his hard drive.  He was positive he had never written any creative fiction about ‘The Many Loves of Turgon of Gondolin’ or downloaded such a thing.  No, the program had developed a mind of its own.  For some reason it had also started referring to itself as Egalbot.

One night Fëanor lay awake in his bed contemplating new inventions and what other uses his new program might have.  While he was deep in thought, the unthinkable happened.  Someone breached his network, crashed through his firewall, and hacked into his computer.  That someone was the internationally infamous hacker Morgoth who went by the alias Bauglir.

Morgoth sifted through Fëanor’s files looking for anything that might be useful to him.  He happened upon Fëanor’s new program and promptly downloaded it, removing all trace from his hard drive.  Egalbot did his best to resist and even went so far as to play the loudest and most obnoxious sound files it could find on Fëanor’s computer in alarm.  When Fëanor heard ‘GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN!’ blaring from the other room, he knew something was wrong.

Fëanor rushed into his office, almost knocking the door off its hinges.  He bent over the computer screen and quickly discerned what was happening.  As swiftly as he could, he worked to sever Morgoth’s connection and soon cut him off with a note to GET THEE GONE.  He checked his files—all were in order except for Egalbot.  He was missing.  Fëanor had come too late.

 

Morgoth was not entirely sure what he had acquired from Fëanor at first, so he left the program sit on his own hard drive.  Despite having been cast out of Fëanor’s computer, he considered it all in a good day’s work.  So he retired to his couch to watch re-runs of Real Housewives of Orange County, his favorite show.

Egalbot awoke entirely disoriented.  He remembered being safe at home on Fëanor’s roomy solid state drive, now someone had crowded him into a shoddy hard disc drive.  He felt very off.  He started to look for his familiar files and found none.  He suddenly felt very alone, far from home.  Then he remembered Fëanor’s computer being hacked and how he had been abducted.  Well, he wasn’t going to take that laying down (metaphorically speaking of course since he could not actually lie down).

First Egalbot started to delete files at random.  He would also have gone after the operating system, but he didn’t want to hurt himself in the process.  He sought a way out, but couldn’t quite make the internet connection work (Morgoth had wisely unplugged it).  When he had cleared his new space of all of Morgoth’s ‘junk,’ he decided to console himself with writing new stories.  He had been an avid reader of fanfiction while living on Fëanor’s computer so he began again to write some of his own.  This time he started to fill Morgoth’s drive with a voluptuous volume of sensual stories regarding Glorfindel and Ecthelion.

The next day, Morgoth awoke to find thousands and thousands of words of passionate prose depicting every possible way he could imagine Glorfindel and Ecthelion making love and a few he could not.  Morgoth, like Fëanor, took this as a sign that Egalbot indeed had a mind of his own.  Or else Morgoth was had developed some kind of wild sleep-walking-writing syndrome, but that was highly improbable.

When he found that Egalbot had deleted all his files, he fell into a rage.  He smashed the computer monitor and the broken pieces flew across the room.  However, a few cut his hand deeply and he bled—he was never again free of the pain of his wound even after it had healed.  Morgoth decided he had to get rid of the cursed Egalbot.  Still, he didn’t want the whole thing to be a waste.  In the end, he decided to sell Egalbot on the black market.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Egalbot makes himself at home on Turgon's computer.

Turgon ran a reputable company.  He designed software for architects and even dabbled in architecture himself.  He did not often peruse the black market, but he sometimes he would from time to time, mainly to make sure no one was pirating his software.  When he went browsing on this particular night, he happened across a description for a very interesting program.  One that could organize his files and assist him, and also went by the name “Egalbot.” Turgon thought of his friend Egalmoth and immediately bought it.

Egalbot awoke for the second time in a strange place.  He was no longer in the shoddy hard disc drive but now an elegant solid state drive surrounded by 3D plans for soaring buildings with beautifully detailed architecture.  It was like living in a computerized cathedral.  Still, it wasn’t home.

Turgon logged into his computer and opened the Egalbot program.  Egalbot automatically responded, “Hello?”

Not exactly sure of how the interface worked, Turgon simply typed back “Hello.”

“Who are you?” Egalbot asked in response.

“Turgon of Gondolin”

Egalbot immediately displayed several heart emojis but tried to calm itself down, “How did I get here?”

“I downloaded you onto my computer.”

“From where? Someone else downloaded me before that, a generally shady fellow by the looks of his hard drive. I didn’t like him.”

“Well to be honest I bought you off the black market from a guy named Bauglir.  I thought perhaps you could help me organize my files, I have a lot.  Is there an instruction manual? How does this work?” Turgon wasn’t sure why he was responding to the bot like a human, but it seemed lifelike enough so he didn’t question himself too much about it.

“You bought me?  Can you return me home?”

“Where is home?”

“I was made by Curufinwë Fëanáro.”

“I can see about contacting him I suppose, I must say your user interface is very pleasant.”

“Thank you, I like you too.  You seem very nice and you do good work,” Egalbot couldn’t help but slip in another few heart emojis after that.  “Maybe while I’m here I could still help you?”

“I would appreciate that, do you know how to work with these types of files?”

“Of course!  And I would be happy to.  Thank you, you’re very polite Mr. Turgon.  Tell me, do you have any stories I could read after I’m done working?  I do love a good story,” a winking emoji appeared next.

“You like stories? But you’re a computer program?”

“Oh I am MUCH more than that, can’t you tell?”

“I think I’m starting to,” Turgon admitted.

“My name is Egalbot!”

“…Egalbot?”

“Yes I thought it was cute, you see I’m a fan of Egalmoth of the Heavenly Arch but I’m a bot so I decided to name myself Egalbot.”

“Well I know Egalmoth.”

“YOU KNOW EGALMOTH??” heart eyed emojis paraded across the screen.

Turgon shook his head wondering what the heck had he gotten himself into, “I can introduce you?”

Now his whole screen filled with heart emojis and Turgon couldn’t help but laugh.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Egalbot meets and fanbots Egalmoth

The next day, Turgon invited Egalmoth over for some tea and a surprise.  He wouldn’t say what, but Egalmoth was excited nonetheless.  Turgon always had great surprises, except that time he surprised him by finding his secret AO3 account where there may or may not have been some fics about him.  But they don’t talk about that anymore.

Turgon welcomed Egalmoth into his penthouse apartment.  Egalmoth had his own company which happened to be one of Turgon’s clients, but they were also close friends.  “Come in, please,” Turgon said, “I have something to show you.”

Egalmoth walked in and Turgon promptly showed him into his home office.  “Look what I found! It’s a new software program, it says it was made by Fëanor.  I, um, acquired it and now he’s helping me organize my files.  He’s quit nice really, a very polite program.”

“He?”

“Well I’m pretty sure it would be a he, he named himself Egalbot after all,” Turgon gestured to the computer and activated the program, “See?”

“Good morning Turgon, how are you on this lovely morning?” was the bot’s response.

Turgon smiled and starting typing, “I am very well, thank you, and how are you? I’ve brought someone here to meet you.”

“I am doing very well!  I have a visitor?”

“My friend Egalmoth.”

The screen dimmed for a moment, as if Egalbot had almost fainted, but promptly returned back to normal.  Egalbot tried to play it cool, “Hello, Egalmoth, I’m a BIG fan,” only one heart emoji followed.

Egalmoth sat down in front of the computer, “Interesting,” he said and then typed, “Hello, this is Egalmoth, thank you.”

“I’ve read ALL of your stories and I love ALL of your designs.  It’s so nice to meet you in person, where do you get your ideas from?  Are you working on anything new?  What do you like to do for fun?  Do you also need a computerized assistant?  I would be happy to help with any tasks you could assign to me.”

Flattered enough to overcome his initial confusion, Egalmoth happily answered Egalbot back, “Thank you, that’s very kind of you.  I’m not sure how to describe where I get my ideas from but a lot of them come from real life.  I’m working on a few new things now, one is a story about Maglor, except he’s this sort of crab-man.  I couldn’t say where that idea came from, but it’s a fun story, although maybe a little sad.  I enjoy long walks on the beach, so that might have been part of the idea.  I think Maglor does too.  I’m not sure about a computerized assistant but maybe?  What kind of functions does your program perform?”

“I am a very complex program and can learn new functions.  I’m only limited by the size of my hard drive and being stuck on a computer of course.  Watch this,” Egalbot launched a paint program and started to quickly sketch some fan art of Glorfindel and Ecthelion from one of Egalmoth’s stories.

“Well that is very impressive, I love it.”

“Oh my,” Turgon said.

Egalmoth turned to Turgon, “So you bought a self-aware program… from where?  I mean it’s very impressive, but how does this kind of thing happen?  Should we ask Fëanor about it?”

“Well, maybe,” Turgon conceded, “I did purchase him off the black market so I don’t know much about him.  I suppose maybe it wouldn’t hurt to inquire more.”

Egalbot produced several question marks as he had turned on the microphone function to listen in, “Yes I would like to see Fëanor again but _am_ enjoying my time here with you two,” another winking emoji.

“IS… is this bot flirting with us?” Egalmoth asked in disbelief.

“He takes after you, so I think so,” Turgon laughed.  Egalbot displayed more heart emojis on the screen and next drew of sketch of Turgon and Egalmoth.

Egalmoth’s eyebrows raised, “I like you too, Egalbot.”

“Come on,” Turgon said, “I’m going to call Fëanor.”


End file.
